God created humans to worship. In the Garden, Adam and Eve were able to worship their Creator face to face. In their rebellion, humans were cut off from the face of God. The Cherubim were set in place throughout history to guard the worship of God. First in the entrance to Eden (Genesis 3:24), then set on both ends of the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25). Eventually, they were set to guard the Holy of Holies (2 Chronicles 3).
Though all of mankind was cursed through the sin of Adam (Romans 5:12), the Lord was gracious in letting His people worship Him from afar. God was specific in His commandments to His people regarding how sinners were to worship him (Deuteronomy 12:32), and the punishment for veering from that command proved to be severe. Consider Nadab and Abihu:
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ And Aaron held his peace. – Leviticus 10:1-3
In short, the two priests were flippant and disobedient (Exodus 30:9) with the worship they offered to God, and they died because of it. Granted, this is not the normative penalty for this sin, but because God’s character never changes (Numbers 23), the truth remains—God cares how He is worshipped.
You might say that this is simply an Old Testament narrative that doesn’t apply to the church today, but that notion would simply deny the immutability of God. We may not worship with burnt offerings under the New Covenant, but does that mean God is now indifferent about the way in which we worship Him?
The Christian Tech-Nerd 